DUBAI: A missile fired by Yemen’s Ansar Allah group struck a military parade in Yemen’s southern separatist-held town of Al Dhalea, killing at least five people and injuring others, Yemen’s Security Belt forces said on Sunday. No claim of responsibility was made and Ansar Allah media did not immediately comment on the blast or accusation. The Security Belt forces are part of a southern separatist front in south Yemen. At the same time, they are backed in a fight against Yemen’s Ansar Allah group. Witnesses said that a blast occurred near a guest platform during the parade and that many were injured or killed. They reported seeing bodies at the scene.
At least five people died and eight were injured, according to local health authority figures quoted by the Security Belt group and in a statement from the local media office of the forces which control Al Dhalea. A missile blast struck the military graduation parade area just after the ceremony involving Security Belt forces had finished, the statements said. Yemen has suffered from almost five years of conflict since the Ansar Allah movement ousted President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi’s government in late 2014. The coup drew military intervention in 2015 by a coalition, which includes the UAE, trying to restore Hadi’s internationally recognised government.
The town of Al Dhalea is controlled by southern separatist forces. It lies on the main south-to-north road linking the southern port of Aden — controlled by Hadi’s government — to the Ansar Allah-controlled capital, Sanaa. A contested frontline runs across Al Dhalea province. In August, the Ansar Allah claimed responsibility for a missile and drone attack on a parade in Aden, the seat of the internationally recognised government, killing around 36 people including a prominent commander.
Meanwhile, a Saudi criminal court sentenced a Yemeni man to death on Sunday for a knife attack on a Spanish theatre group performing in Riyadh last month, state television said. The court also sentenced an accomplice to 12 years and six months in jail for the November 11 attack which Riyadh has linked to group Al Qaeda, and which Madrid said left four performers wounded. “The criminal court issues a preliminary ruling handing the death sentence to the perpetrator of the terrorist attack... in Riyadh,” the official Al Ekhbariya television reported.
The assailant, identified by Saudi police as a 33-year-old Yemeni, went on a stabbing spree during a live musical in the capital’s King Abdullah Park, one of the venues hosting the two-month “Riyadh Season” entertainment festival. Last week, Al Ekhbariya said the attacker took orders from an Al Qaeda leader in Yemen, but so far there has been no claim of responsibility from the group. Al Ekhbariya did not offer any details on his alleged accomplice. — AFP
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